


Obstacle

by AAfanbug (TheEyeofTheOncomingStorm)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Identity Reveal, Pre-Troublemaker, post-Dark Owl, post-reveal, pre-reveal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:15:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheEyeofTheOncomingStorm/pseuds/AAfanbug
Summary: After they're paired up to run an obstacle course, Adrien and Marinette discover that they work really well as a team.Suspiciously well...





	1. Course of Action

Marinette was sure she was going to faint. Just flat-out, drop to the ground, dead faint.

It was gym class. They had been told that they had assigned partners for the obstacle course. As the names were being read off, Marinette prayed that she’d wouldn’t get Chloe assigned as a partner. Again.

Her partner was not Chloe.

But she wasn’t sure if she had the best luck ever, or the worst.

* * *

“Again!”

Adrien frowned and Marinette practically growled at the gym teacher, but they both went back to the start line. For the third time.

“How many times is he going to make us do this?” Marinette muttered.

“Hopefully just once more.” Adrien replied.

“Three, two, one, go!”

* * *

Not even halfway through the course. They collapsed on the floor, exhausted and out of breath. Pretending to not be as athletic as they truly were as superheroes were exhausting. 

The teacher pointed at them. “You two, bench! You can try again after everyone else has gone through.”

They rose with a groan and slowly made their way to the bench.

“This is the worst.” Marinette groaned. “I don’t think my calves have ever hurt this much.”

“This is more exhausting than fighting an ak-” Adrien stopped himself just in time. “I mean, fencing lessons.”

“Tell me about it.” Marinette slumped forward, resting her head in her hands as she leaned on her elbows on her knees.

“I don’t know about you, but I don’t plan on going through that obstacle course another three times, do you?”

Marinette shook her head. “Once was enough, and we never even finished! Is it even legal to have obstacle course this hard in schools?”

Gruff shouts from their gym teacher interrupted their conversation. “You better be watching and learning, you two! You’re gonna run this course all the way through at least one time before either of you goes home, I don’t care what plans it gets in the way of!”

Marinette and Adrien both glowered at the teacher’s turned back. Then Marinette sighed. “We may as well watch. Maybe we can learn some tricks to get through the course faster.”

Adrien smiled at her (of course she wasn’t looking). “Sounds like a plan.”

They sat and watched a few other pairs go through the obstacle course. Only a few of them had to run the course twice, and no one but them had had to run three times.

After a while, the gym teacher took a break, allowing everyone to run to the bathroom or get a drink of water. He approached Marinette and Adrien, who were still watching, bored, from the benches.

“Okay, we need to talk about what happened out there earlier.”

Marinette sighed and hung her head. “I know, I suck at athletic stuff.”

“The most active thing I do is fencing,” was Adrien’s excuse.

The gym teacher just shook his head. “No, no, that’s not the problem. You’re holding back, both of you.”

“What?” They chorused.

“You’re holding back.” He said again. “Marinette, you reached the ropes and started out with such confidence, only you seemed to loose it. And you, Agreste. You almost made a perfect climb up that wall, only to trip and fall all the way back down.”

“I’m clumsy?” Adrien tried.

“You tripped the same way.” The teacher said. “Four times.”

“It’s a hard spot.” Marinette defended.

The teacher pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I don’t care what’s going on, or why you want to fail this course so bad. Just finish this course, or I really will make you run it till you finally get through it.”

“But-”

“I will personally call both your parents if I have to.” The teacher said. Then he turned away, heading to the course to reset some of the obstacles. Marinette stuck her tongue out at his back, and Adrien glared at him.

Unbeknownst to each other, the pair had identical thoughts. If the teacher wanted them not to hold back, well, they weren’t going to.

* * *

When it was their turn once again, their jaws were set in twin determined lines. The teacher held his stopwatch and started counting down. Adrien crouched slightly into a running position. Marinette did the same.

“One-”

Marinette took a breath.

“Two-”

Adrien glanced over at Marinette, who instinctively looked back. For reasons unknown to each other, they smiled, as if they’d done this a million times before.

“Three!”

They were off like a shot.

First was the tires. They matched each other in skill, Adrien being more agile where Marinette was faster. They didn’t miss one and sped, step in step, to the ropes. Marinette didn’t hold back this time. She climbed, hand over hand, to the marked spot on the rope. She spared a quick glance over to Adrien, who was only a few seconds behind her. They climbed back down the rope in tandem, and met the rock climb with vigor.

Marinette wasn’t surprised that Adrien sped past her on the wall. He did, after all, have a rock climb in his room. What she didn’t expect was for him to wait for her. Or to give her a hand to the top of the wall.

“Hey!” The teacher shouted, and Adrien grinned in a manner that reminded her remarkably of Chat Noir.

“Not against the rules!” He shouted.

A rope web was strung up behind the rock wall, and they clambered down, turning to face the hurdles. Marinette ran and leapt, just as anyone else would, but Adrien went one step further. He cartwheeled to the first, then flipped over it, and then the next one. The last one he jumped over like normal, dropped, and did a somersault, springing to his feet next to Marinette, who’d just arrived at the balance beam.

Energy and exhilaration had flooded both their systems, and everyone else in the room faded away.There was nothing but the obstacles and them. Marinette was the first to leap onto the balance beam, then ran - not walked, but ran - along the beam to the next one. After running rooftops, beams were a breeze. 

Adrien was right behind her, mounting the beam as she moved to the next one. She landed with a soft thud onto the mats set up at the end of the beams, and Adrien landed in a crouch next to her.

Last were the bars. Again, Marinette went first on the monkey bars, and Adrien just a few rungs behind her. Then, in a burst of energy, Adrien swung to one side, shimmied along the side of the monkey bars, and got in front of Marinette. This seemed to tick her off, and as they approached the final obstacle, the limbo bars, she dashed ahead, and in what looked like one fluid motion, dropped to her knees, sliding towards the bar. As she passed under it, she very quickly removed, lowered, and replaced the bar. Adrien took it in stride, dropping to the floor just as she did, and essentially slid under the very much lowered bar on his back.

Marinette was already on her feet once more as Adrien sprang up. Then, out of habit, they pounded their fists together. Then they looked at each other in utter confusion. Where had _that_ come from?

A sudden commotion reminded them that there were other people in the room.

“Oh my god, girl!” Alya shouted. “Where did you learn to do _that_ and how the hell did you not break anything?!”

Nino was laughing. “Dudes, you were awesome! Drift-compatible, baby!”

“Even cooler than Ladybug and Chat Noir!” Rose squealed. “And a _way_ cuter couple!”

Rose’s words rang a warning in their ears as they exchanged worried glances, which grew to shock as they realized that the other was just as concerned, presumably for the same reasons. They blushed and looked away. Marinette made her excuses and escaped to the bathroom, where she took a moment to freak out.

He knew. Adrien _knew_.

Crap.


	2. Adrien's POV

The rest of school and the ride home that day was all a blur to Adrien. If you asked him, he couldn't tell you with any certainty what happened after he saw her face. After he saw _her_.

He knew. After all this time. After all the waiting. He finally knew.

He just wished that she had been able to tell him herself.

Marinette was his Lady.

Even better, she seemed to know who he was as well, judging from her reaction. But he couldn’t blame her for that. She had, after all, been the one to insist that their identities remain a secret. He almost felt bad for her. Well, he did feel bad for her. But nothing could dampen his good mood.

One of his best friends was the girl he’d fallen in love with.

More importantly, his Lady had a name.

He dropped his school bag, barely noticing Plagg glaring at him. Adrien fell back on his bed, a dreamy expression on his face. “Marinette… Her name is Marinette.”

Plagg rolled his eyes. _He_ , of course, already knew who Ladybug was. After that business with Dark Owl, how could he not? And his chosen’s crush on Ladybug had reached vomit-inducing proportions long before that.

“Well?” Plagg prompted. “Aren’t you gonna go talk to her? You’ve only been mooning over her practically since the moment you became Chat Noir. Go get her!”

“No, I can’t." Adrien shook his head." Not yet.”

Plagg let out a long-suffering sigh. “And why not?”

Adrien shot his kwami an annoyed look. “It’s Marinette. She can barely say two words to me without stuttering.”

“She’s also Ladybug.” Plagg reminded him pointlessly. “She’s talked to you plenty as Adrien, no problem.”

“I just want to give her a little bit of space. You saw how much of a rush she was in to leave.” Adrien looked back up at the ceiling. “I might have been prepared for this- hell, _dreaming_ about this, but she probably wasn’t. If she calls me first to talk, I’ll talk. But for now… for now, it’s probably best if I leave her alone.”

Plagg groaned inwardly. And outwardly. "Fine, if you're not going out, I want cheese. A lot of it, if I have keep putting up with your sighing all night!"

"You don't have one scrap of romance to your name, do you?" Adrien grumbled as he rose from the bed and headed for the kitchen.

Plagg shouted after him. "Yes, I do. But it's reserved for Tikki! And Camembert! And that's it!"


	3. Marinette's POV

Marinette, no matter what was going on, always tried to make it to school on time. Tried to make to every single one of her classes. But that day, she did something she'd never done before.

She cut school. She didn't even try to pretend to be sick, or make up an excuse. She just changed her clothes, and went home. No doubt her teachers would have something to say about that.

That, however, was not her problem right now.

No, her problem right now was that a certain green-eyed, blond-hair boy from her class now knew - or at least suspected - that she had feelings for him.

“Ohh, Tikki, this is bad!” Marinette wailed into her pillow.

Tikki pet her hair soothingly. “It’s not as bad as it seems. It was bound to happen eventually. Think of it this way; now you don’t have to tell him. He already knows.”

“What if he hates me?” Marinette whispered.

“Adrien is not going to hate you.” The red kwami assured her. “He’s your friend.”

“That’s the problem!” Marinette said frantically. “We’re _friends_. How many times has he said that? Just. Friends. People who are just friends don’t have crazy crushes on their friends. And now he’s going to find out that I have a crush on him? That I’ve been basically lying to him almost the entire time we’ve known each other?”

Tikki resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She and her other half were the only ones to know that they had both been hiding a secret from the moment they met. The same secret, in fact. These two kids weren’t the most clueless that she and Plagg had been paired with, but they certainly came the closest.

No one could beat Yvette and Mikkel.

“I think he’d still understand, Marinette.”

“I need a distraction.” Marinette pulled out her notebook and started sketching. Tikki sighed and flew up to sit on Marinette's shoulder. She knew that the girl would talk when she was ready. And she did after a while.

Marinette let her pencil rest, staring at the page but not really seeing it. Hot tears threatened to fall from the corners of her eyes.

"What if he doesn't like me back?" She whispered. "All this time, I could live with the possibility that he didn't like me- like I liked him, I mean. As long as there was the possibility that he did. But now I'll know for sure. What if..."

"He does. He will." Tikki rubbed her head against Marinette's cheek. "And if he doesn't, then he's an idiot."

Her chosen laughed a little, and Tikki continued. "Who knows, Marinette? Maybe knowing that you like him will be the thing that opens his eyes to you, as more than a friend."

"I hope you're right Tikki." She murmured. Then a thought occurred to her, and she gasped. "Oh my gosh. What am I going to tell Alya?!"

Tikki sighed deeply as Marinette started her third freakout of the day. This was going to be a long night.


End file.
